Friday, January 13, 2012

Frankie Yankovic and his Yanks

Friday's finally here, and you know what that means—Polka Night! Though "America's Polka King" Frankie Yankovic (no relation to Weird Al) was born in West Virginia, his family moved him to Cleveland when he was just a tot and it's there that he rose to polka fame—as I learned during my visit last summer to the city's Polka Museum, where I laid eyes on Yankovic's accordion and some of his stage outfits. Frankie began "fooling around" with the accordion at the tender age of six, eventually even learning to play the thing. He nearly lost his fingers to frostbite during his service in WWII, but fortunately for polka-lovers everywhere the fingers stayed on. This 1957 Columbia LP offers a collection of Yankovic favorites, both waltzes and polkas, both with vocals and without. And one of them has yodeling! You can read about the life and career of Frankie Yankovic on Wikipedia here and in the liner notes below. And as you go twirling around the house tonight, take care not to polka your eye out!

1 comment:

Interesting!I remember putting a few Frankie Yankovich songs on early mixtapes and some folks thought I was on drugs while doing my mixes asking if I was smoking pot or drinking vodka.I touch neither.OK well I don't smoke anyway!